Article by Marnia Robinson and Gary Wilson

Excerpt from Cupid's Poisoned Arrow: From Habit to Harmony in Sexual Relationships.

Chapter One: Biology Has Plans For Your Love Life

Hit by Cupid’s arrow! What an exhilarating, enviable state of affairs. Everyone wants to believe that the key to lasting romantic bliss is a partner with whom you feel a passion so intense that it can never fade. Yet, have you ever fallen in love with total abandon, experienced wonderful lovemaking, been sure you wanted to stay together forever—and then noticed recurring emotional friction arising between you and your beloved? If you’re married do you have a sense that the honeymoon is over? Perhaps one of you sometimes becomes clingy and demanding while the other feels devoured and needs "space." Maybe you experience subtle, periodic irritation, or a sense of stagnation that is gradually extinguishing your former delight in each other. Perhaps you engage in spectacular fights interspersed with passionate reconciliation.

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This subconscious alienation—which mates so often encounter despite their desire to remain in love—is the result of an unsuspected poison on Cupid’s arrow.

(This article has been updated.)
I’ve always wondered why moving, intimate experiences like the Ecstatic Exchanges can create such powerful shifts for couples…and yet why it is so easy for stagnation to creep back into an intimate relationship. Recently I stumbled upon an insight that furnishes an answer to both questions.

We humans are programmed for both reproductive urges (mating) and for physical and emotional closeness (bonding). The bonding program evolved primarily to bond us to our parents, and our kids. This powerful caregiver-infant connection is so fundamental that it is what separates mammals from reptiles. Reptiles just lay eggs and wander off; baby mammals need strong emotional ties to their caregivers for a time in order to survive.

Ho'oponopono

Do you have 'good reason' to be wary of the opposite sex? Most everyone who has been sexually active for a while has been battered by a painful, failed romance - or is feeling bad about contributing to one. Not only that, many have a parent or other trusted adult of the opposite sex who took impulsive actions that were harmful to family members.

In recent years scientists discovered that oxytocin – best known for its role in labor contractions1 - was also the neurochemical behind apparent monogamy (in prairie voles) and emotional bonding between parents and children, friends and lovers. An experiment showed that it increases the attraction between familiar mates (in hamsters), but not between unfamiliar potential mates. 2

Carl Jung recounted the following story, told to him by Richard Wilhelm, who lived in China for many years:

There was a great drought where Wilhelm lived; for months there had not been a drop of rain and the situation became catastrophic. The Catholics made processions, the Protestants made prayers, and the Chinese burned joss-sticks and shot off guns to frighten away the demons of the drought, but with no result.

Finally the Chinese said, 'We will fetch the rain-maker.' And from another province a dried up old man appeared. The only thing he asked for was a quiet little house somewhere, and there he locked himself in for three days. On the fourth day the clouds gathered and there was a great snow-storm at the time of the year when no snow was expected, an unusual amount, and the town was so full of rumours about the wonderful rain-maker that Wilhelm went to ask the man how he did it.

In true European fashion he said: 'They call you the rain-maker; will you tell me how you made the snow?' And the little Chinese said: 'I did not make the snow; I am not responsible.' 'But what have you done these three days?' 'Oh, I can explain that. I come from another country where things are in order. Here they are out of order; they are not as they should be by the ordinance of heaven. Therefore the whole country is not in Tao, and I also am not in the natural order of things because I am in a disordered country. So I had to wait three days until I was back in Tao and then naturally the rain came.'”

Even though I think John Gray is overlooking the most fundamental cause of the disharmony that builds between intimate partners (namely our mammalian mating program, which urges us on to new mates), I always fall in love with him a little bit when I read his books. I find his sincere desire to help men and women stop tearing each other apart endearing, and his folksy wisdom has a lot to recommend it.

While I was collecting material for Peace Between the Sheets, a lovely young woman explained to me that she didn't want to try the alternative of controlled intercourse with its absence of hot foreplay because she wouldn't be able to use all the great lovemaking skills she had mastered.

Anyone who has ever wrestled successfully with redirecting sexual desire learns that there are at least two important spiritual elements (that is, elements apart from techniques that help us get around our neurochemical mating programs). Those elements are willingness and help from the Divine (also known as "grace"). This excerpt from C. S. Lewis' The Great Divorce is an inspiring portrayal of the gains from willingness and Divine assistance.